Fringe: Agent of mercy

A sad man receives sad news at the doctor’s office: it’s cancer. But! There’s a 95% chance its treatable, so that’s good news! Buck up, little camper and all that!

Later, Sad Man sits at a bus stop (On an ad for a Hawaiian vacation that promises, “paradise is closer than you think.” Foreshadowing bus ad foreshadows.) where he is approached by an Asian man who gets all personal about Sad Man’s condition, telling him how his cancer treatments aren’t going to work. Not only are they not going to work, they are going to become increasingly more horrific. Sad Man isn’t, “I’m sorry, could you stay out of my personal businesses, please?” but instead whines that he has a 95 percent chance of survival. NOPE, says stranger. You’re the 5%, he announces just as a bus pulls up. By the time the bus pulls away, Sad Man is dead and Asian Stranger is long gone. OCCUPY THE BUS STOP! DOWN WITH THE 5%!

Meanwhile, Over There, Astrid crosses the bridge to come Over Here and gapes at our Statue of Liberty. Bogus Col. Abbabogus informs Fauxlivia and Jeremy Darling about Astrid’s field trip and Fauxlivia announces that she has a pretty good idea where she went. No worries! Fauxlivia will retrieve her by herself. Enjoy your week off, Jeremy Darling!

Over Here, Bishop and Pacey work on the Bowflex of Doom without egg breaks, to Bishop’s great displeasure. Agent Fraudling lets him take omelet breaks, but unfortunately for Bishop, it’s Agent Fraudling’s week off, so no eggs for him. Bishop wants it to be known that he prefers Agent Fraudling. You and a handful of shippers, Bishop. A handful of wrong-headed shippers.

And then Astrid wanders in and Bishop is all O HAI ASTRO, WANT SOME EGGS? But that’s not Astro, you can tell because she can’t rap and doesn’t have a terrible attitude.

When Olivia and AsteriskAstrid return to the lab and find Astrid there waiting for them, AsteriskAstrid lets out a little scream, because wouldn’t you? Astrid explains that she came here to meet AsteriskAstrid, and begins burbling about not knowing where to go after they lowered “him” into the ground and putting flowers down and whether or not AsteriskAstrid loved “hers,” and AsteriskAstrid is like, O I SEE, her dad died, you guys.

Olivia announces that Fauxlivia is on her way to pick Astrid up and that she’s been called to the bus stop case. So, Olivia takes Pacey and AsteriskAstrid with her to the scene, leaving Astrid and Bishop alone together. This does not seem like a well-considered plan.

OTHER THINGS NOT WELL-CONSIDERED: dealing with the dead body at the bus stop — the one with blood coming out of his eyeballs, the body you THINK MIGHT BE INFECTED WITH EBOLA — without hazmat suits, MUCH LESS GLOVES. Oh sure, just touch that dead body with your bare hands everyone, WHAT COULD GO WRONG? And sure, it’s not Ebola, BUT IT COULD HAVE BEEN EBOLA, and you didn’t know it wasn’t Ebola until you had poked at the dead body WITH YOUR BARE HANDS. (Irrelevant fact about me: I am irrationally terrified of Ebola. I can not even begin to tell you how much it freaked my ish out when there were those Ebola monkeys in South Texas running around. FREAKED ME OUT. CERTAIN WE WERE ALL GOING TO DIE.)

Ebola having been ruled out by a rudimentary and barehanded examination of the body (!!!!), Bishop begins babbling about something called the Tears of Ra, which he claims was a solution the ancient Egyptians used to euthanize their pets, a reference that comes out of nowhere, but fine. Astrid observes that Bishop speaks through AsteriskAstrid, as though they were one person, which she thinks must be pleasant. Sure, says Bishop.

At the scene, the body is sent back to the lab, while an Observer (but not The Observer) observes by stepping out of a nearby window, calling someone on his thingamajig, and announcing that they have located “it,” before disappearing back into the window. Way to be inconspicuous, Observer!

At the Harvard lab, they weigh things and poke things, and Bishop announces that a chemical compound killed Sad Man, a compound of elements that shouldn’t interact in any way, and yet … do. A mixture of elements that no one could have predicted would create a poison. Just as Fauxlivia arrives to Bishop’s great displeasure, Astrid begins yammering about deus ex machinas, the “hand of God,” how the only way someone could predict that these otherwise unmixable elements could mix to create this compound would be if they already knew they could mix which is impossible because no one knew they could mix. Or something. Deus ex machina. Let’s just go with that.

MEANWHILE, some drunk lady who is not merely picking up a bottle of gin to make some fun martinis with her friends after a long week of work, but rather has a problem, which we can tell by the furtive way she pays for the bottle in the liquor store and the way she acts all guilty and suspicious after leaving said liquor store, so we know these aren’t Silly Funtime Drinks but instead Serious Alcoholic Drinks, is cornered by Stranger who starts guilting her about all the terrible things her alcoholism is going to do to her friends and family and before she can be all “BACK OFF, YOU CAN’T SEE THE FUTURE. AND WHO MADE YOU IN CHARGE OF MY INTERVENTION?” he shoves some sort of light thingy in her face.

Back at the Harvard lab, Bishop returns Fauxlivia’s stuff that she left behind, including some sort of metal cube thingamajig that Bishop is fairly certain is some sort of spy device, on account of Fauxlivia being terrible.

Pacey, Olivia and AsteriskAstrid arrive at dead alcoholic’s crime scene, and before Bishop can give AsteriskAstrid instructions, Pacey beats him to the punch, ordering AsteriskAstrid to take DNA samples, and send the body back to the lab, etc. Bishop is not amused. When Pacey and the body return to the lab and Pacey presumes to examine the body, Bishop is REALLY NOT AMUSED, and sends him away to sharpen instruments. Astrid notices Bishop’s irritation and asks if Bishop feels love for Pacey — from what she understands, love and anger are often linked. Bishop explains that Pacey is a reminder of the son he lost, which causes his suffering. So Astrid points out the obvious: why not choose to believe that Pacey is that son? Well, because Bishop hadn’t really thought about it that way.

Olivia goes over the victims’ files, trying to suss out a connection, while Fauxlivia sits nearby and is all, Pacey sure is cute in that peacoat, amirite? Olivia DOESN’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT, GAH.

Meanwhile, at Logan Airport, Stranger is in ur TSA, findin’ victims! He waves one old woman through security, but another man (seat 47A, natch) catches Stranger’s attention, and Stranger writes down the man’s name … and sometime later hunts him down in a parking garage. Passenger 47A is busy barking at someone on a telephone, and doesn’t notice either the strange bald man in a fedora watching him, or the strange Asian man watching him. Agent Stranger approaches 47A and announces that his next phone call will kill him. Driving and cell phoning is bad, people! This is a very bad idea! And it will lead to you being paralyzed and left alone in a nursing home where no one will find your dead body for 10 hours. PUT THE PHONE DOWN. However, Agent Stranger is going to save 47A all that trouble and just kill him now. But 47A! He is not interested in being killed now, thankyouverymuch, and he runs away from Agent Stranger, only to be hit by a car. Cell phones don’t kill people, running away from creepy strangers who tell you cell phones will kill you, kill people.

47A isn’t actually dead, of course, he’s in the hospital, all pinned up and miserable, and he describes to Pacey and Olivia the whole Agent Stranger and LED thingamabob and predicting the future and how the guy thought he was putting 47A out of his misery like he was some sort of saint or something. Long story short: he wishes Agent Stranger had finished the job and not been such a failure.

AsteriskAstrid and Astrid compare case files while doing that creepy simultaneous talking thing, and AsteriskAstrid offers Astrid a cup of coffee — which she’s never had before on account of there being no coffee beans Over There. Bishop muses that they are looking for a compassionate killer, which takes a genius to figure out, clearly, while Astrid notices that all their victims had recently traveled through Logan International and were screened by TSA Agent #0047 (obvs). Connection!

Pacey and Olivia head over to the airport where Agent Stranger immediately sees them and disappears into the security area. The other TSA agents won’t let Pacey and Olivia through to apprehend Agent Stranger, because Puffed Up on Power and Security Theater and Have to Take Off Their Shoes.

At MIT, Pacey and Olivia interview a mathematics professor who was a former colleague of Agent Stranger. It seems Professor Agent Stranger used to be a brilliant math professor who believed math could unlock the secrets of the universe. He spent a summer at a lake house and returned obsessed with higher level equations that he believed could flatten space and time. And then he just up and left. The math professor finds the lake house address: Reiden Lake, uh duh. Pacey notes that maybe The Observer has something to do with all of this, because obviously. Hey, let’s get into this electric Nissan Leaf and take a drive!

While Pacey and Olivia are driving around New England, Astrid explains to AsteriskAstrid that she is consumed with the idea that she couldn’t love her father in a way that he could understand, and she wonders if she were more like AsteriskAstrid, if her father would have loved her more. AsteriskAstrid, she says nothing.

Pacey and Olivia arrive at the lake house which is decorated in typical Mad Genius fashion: equations all over the walls, pictures and statues of saints, framed newspaper stories, etc. From this mess of clues, Pacey and Olivia deduce that Professor Agent Stranger’s twin and father died in a car accident and decide that he must be at his mother’s house.

Which is exactly where Professor Agent Stranger is, stashing his LED thingamabob in a safe and being harangued by his Asian mother. And in the wake of the Jeremy Lin controversies, heaven forbid I get myself into some trouble, but this is pretty much the entire scene. Professor Agent Stranger tells his mother that he heard her the night his twin died, how she wished it had been him instead. But God had a plan for him; God gave Professor Agent Stranger the ability to see the future — which he proves by doing that irritating simultaneous speaking thing. Everyone with the simultaneous speaking thing! And like Jesus who knew the Romans were coming for him and faced his death head on, Professor Agent Stranger is ready to face God’s plan for him. And so, as Pacey and Olivia arrive, he readies himself with a gun which he aims towards Olivia, forcing her to shoot him. See you in Heaven, Ma!

Case closed, Fauxlivia and Astrid prepare to return Over There. But first, Fauxlivia reveals to Bishop that her evil spy cube is actually a mint container, which she then gives to him as a gift, and AsteriskAstrid tells Astrid that her father is a difficult man who doesn’t show his emotions, but that she knows he loves her — or at least that’s what she tells herself. Astrid shouldn’t regret that she couldn’t love her father differently; it wasn’t her, it was him. Astrid seems relieved to hear this, and she and Fauxlivia head back to their universe, KBAI.

However! AsteriskAstrid! She lied to her double! She visits her father, who is a lovable teddy bear of a man who loves and understands his daughter. THIS IS VERY HEARTBREAKING! SO VERY HEARTBREAKING! I SHAKE MY FIST AT YOU, FRINGE, FOR MAKING ME TEAR UP!

Back at Asian Mom’s house, the Observer who is not September, I think his name is March, goes into the safe and retrieves the LED thingamabob that Pacey and Olivia apparently didn’t find because TERRIBLE DETECTIVING, and hands it to that older Observer, December. Yep! It’s September’s thingamabob! they confirm. And ohbytheway, September totally didn’t follow your orders, March tattles. Pacey is running around in this timeline. This is news to December, despite that whole Seeing All of Time and Space thing, which you’d think would make you pretty hard to surprise. Go figure!

The biggest theme of this episode was mercy: both Professor Agent Stranger and AsteriskAstrid bestow a kind of mercy onto others, they try to end other’ suffering. And interestingly, both forms of their mercy are questionable: Professor Agent Stranger murders to end his victims’ suffering and AsteriskAstrid flat-out lies to Astrid. Greater good and all that. Additionally, it could be argued that Astrid delivers her own sort of mercy to Bishop, encouraging him to choose to believe Pacey is his son, so as to stop his own suffering.

What is curious is this parallel between Professor Agent Stranger and Emily from the previous episode: they both have access to visions of the future, and they both attempt to change it, to prevent it, to save those they have in their “visions” from the futures they see for them. What’s interesting is that Emily’s work and life come to an end when she is finally able to change the future she sees, whereas Professor Agent Stranger’s work and life come to an end when he is unable to save 47A from the future he sees.

This of course opens up all sorts of questions about fate and free will and time and prophecy and whether or not the future is predetermined or if it is malleable. By knowing the future, can we prevent it? The Lost model suggests that time is cyclical — “loop, dude, loop” — and that the future can not be rewritten. In fact, if we learn the future and attempt to change it, we simply set into motion that which will always happen. However, in the Fringe model, the future does appear to be changeable. “White Tulip” (which I keep bringing up, I KNOW, I AM SORRY) was the first episode to tease this notion — that time could be rebooted, rewritten, but that there are consequences. This notion was writ large when Pacey used the Bowflex of Doom to create an entire new timeline. And now, in the wake of Olivia receiving her own prophetic message from The Observer regarding her own doom, we have two different characters both able to see and, perhaps more importantly, change the future. Is Olivia’s fate unavoidable, or is there some other way to save her, a way that The Observer was unable to, well, observe?

(And this is a technical question, but what was the nature of Professor Agent Stranger’s ability to see the future? They hint that it was tied to the Observer’s device, and according to the fringepedia transcript, 47A even goes so far to say, “… he had this weird rod. It was blue. And he’d look into it like he was some kind of fortune teller. He said I was gonna have a car accident, and I was gonna end up like this.” But Professor Agent Stranger didn’t use the thingamabob when he would determine his victims — he just seemed to know them upon sight. So what’s the deal? Did he use the device, math or some sort of combination of device, higher math and insight to see the future? I’m slightly confused.)

As far as the other themes in this episode, I found the whole quest for parental approval and love very moving. Obviously, Pacey is still struggling to connect with this Bishop, and vice versa, but far more touching were Professor Agent Stranger and Astrid‘s seeking out their parents’ love and approval. It’s curious that Professor Agent Stranger’s brother, the preferred child, was his twin. This twinning is mirrored in the relationship between Astrid and AsteriskAstrid: one loved twin, one rejected.

What I find even more curious about the interactions between Astrid and AsteriskAstrid was the curious simultaneous speaking scene. We have seen the Observers use this trick, which is explained by their ability to see all time. Professor Agent Stranger also does this to his mother, again, in demonstration of his being able to see all time. What is interesting is that there is one other instance of people speaking simultaneously (if I am remembering correctly, which, please correct me if you can remember others), that being in the episode “The Plateau,” in which an autistic man who has been given an experimental drug is suddenly able to see all possibilities of any action and predict what will happen. I’m not sure that Astrid and AsteriskAstrid’s simultaneous speaking is supposed to indicate anything other than their similarities and bond, but I found it a curious pattern worth mentioning.

Finally, I find it fascinating that the Fringe writers are dipping their toes back into religious waters after carefully avoiding them for so long. (Or are they?) Professor Agent Stranger’s fervent faith drives his actions: it’s not that he is power-mad and playing with people’s lives, he genuinely believes he is doing God’s work, that he is saving people. Interestingly, this episode comes on the heels of one in which a girl has supernatural powers that allow her to see the future; powers that are not based in science, but rather given to her inexplicably. Were they given to her by God, or did she, like Professor Agent Stranger, come into contact with something on the shores of a lake some years ago that gave her the ability to see and alter the future? Did the Observer leave behind, somehow, the ability to see through time when he did not save Pacey in this timeline? Was that gift of life (and, apparently, untimely death) — and the ability to see into and change time — that The Observer once gave Pacey, transferred to others in Pacey’s “death?” Is this merely an act of physics, of a combination of unconscious forces that lead to these events, or is The Observer acting through all times as the deus ex machina, the Hand of God, or are the two synonymous?

I DO NOT KNOW. ALL I KNOW IS MOAR ASTERISKASTRID.

Easter eggs

The Observers are all over the place.

The previous episode clue was a thrift shop sign near the Mallum’s apartment that reads “Anges de la Pité” — angels of Mercy in French.